“M. lost her first tooth!” my sister said. “The tooth fairy left five dollars last night.”

“FIVE DOLLARS?!?!” I shouted into the phone.

To be fair, it was M.’s first lost tooth. Perhaps the Tooth Fairy got overzealous. But still. Is this just inflation in action or was I seriously gipped back in the late ’80s?

Back in the day, I think the Tooth Fairy left me a quarter per tooth or maybe a few quarters, if I was lucky. On one special occasion, she left a present under my pillow (a book of poems) after I’d had a tooth pulled out at the dentist’s office using Novocaine. But, no, I never acquired enough cash losing my teeth to wander away from “Sesame Street” and buy myself a latte.

My sister suggested the Tooth Fairy might be less generous going forward, but who knows. Now there’s a precedent to follow. Which reminds me, BRB, off to knock out some of my own teeth.

Am I just miserly and old? Or is $5-per-tooth the going rate these days? Parents of small drippy children who occasionally bleed from their mouths, please let us know in the comments.

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